It is a favorite opinion with him, that man can have no _absolute_ knowledge; that truth is not fixed, but fluctuating; that what was believed in one age, and believed _necessarily_, according to the fundamental laws of thought, is as necessarily disbelieved in the next; and that there is no standard of truth at any time better or surer than the public opinion, or general consent, of the most advanced classes of society.[90] This theory of Truth, as necessarily mobile and fluctuating, has a tendency, we think, to engender universal skepticism, even when it is stated, with various important modifications, by such writers as Lamennais and Morell; but, in the hands of M.Comte, it becomes more dangerous still, since it represents the human race as having been from the beginning, through a long series of ages, subject to a law of development which not only _permitted_, but actually _compelled_ them to believe a lie; and thus casts a dark shade of suspicion both on the constitution of man and on the government of God.
Such a theory would seem also to preclude all rational calculations respecting the future progress and prospects of the race.

For what ground can exist for any prognostication in regard to the ulterior advancement or ultimate destiny of man, if it be true that, in his past history, Fetishism has passed into Polytheism, and Polytheism into Monotheism, without any extraneous instruction, and by the mere action of those inherent laws to which humanity is subject?
And, still more, if it be further true that even now the human mind is in a state of transition, passing through the crisis of Metaphysical doubt towards the goal of Positive Atheism, who shall assure us that this will be its last and final metamorphosis?
It does appear to us to be one of the most singular and perplexing anomalies of his elaborate system, that he can dogmatize so confidently on the _terminus ad quem_ of human progress, when from the _terminus a quo_ there has been, according to his own account, a series of variations so wonderful, and a succession of states so diverse and opposite, as those which he describes.

And yet he pronounces oracularly that Positive Science is the ultimate landing-place of human thought, and that universal Atheism is the final barrier which must needs close and terminate the long series of developments.
We have spoken sternly of his system; we have no wish to speak harshly of the man.

Had we any disposition to do so, there is more than enough in the personal explanation, prefixed to the closing volume of his work, effectually to disarm us.

We have too much sympathy with the trials of a vigorous but eccentric mind, struggling in untoward circumstances, and against an adverse tide, to maintain a position of honorable independence, to say a word that could wound the feelings or injure the prospects of a man of science.